The world is as it is: those who are insignificant, those who allow themselves to be insignificant, have no place in this world.

—Naipaul (West Indian writer, travelogue writer, and social critic)

The Roman heavy infantry used their shields to form a shield wall defense line from north to south, which was thousands of meters long, and specific to each legion and each wing, and the Roman heavy infantry to which each brigade belonged was an independent part, and dozens of independent small shield walls together formed an extra-long shield wall.

As Aldington and Marcus nodded at each other, the trumpeters behind them immediately sounded the horns of the counterattack, and as soon as the majestic counterattack horn sounded, all the Roman hoplites standing in even positions straightened their bodies at the same time.

Half of the Roman heavy infantry on the shield wall defense line stood up straight, and the originally solid shield wall defense line instantly became weak, but before the Lucy warriors noticed it, these Roman heavy infantry who were standing up straight suddenly turned the square shield they were holding in their left hand to the left.

While the Roman hoplites turned their shields with their left hand, they stabbed their short swords with their right hands at the enemy soldiers outside the shield wall, and the Lucy warriors, who were caught off guard, were already killed and wounded before they could react.

The Roman hoplites, who had won the blow, had already drawn their daggers before the Lucy warriors, who had suffered heavy losses, had already drawn their daggers, turned their shields back to the right again, and used their bodies to regain their grip on the shields in their left hands.

By the time the Lucy warriors had reacted with heavy casualties, the shield wall had returned to its original solidity, and no matter how hard the enraged Lucy warriors slashed, they could not shake the solid shield wall.

The Lucy warriors, who had eaten a trench and grew wise, maintained a fairly high vigilance in the place where the Roman heavy infantry had just been killed when they collided with the slashing shields, but unfortunately, this vigilance in exchange for losses did not play any valuable role.

On the ever-changing battlefield, the overly tense and fast pace of battle doomed the Lucy warriors not to have much time to think, while the Roman hoplites, who were skilled in the use of shield wall tactics, did not need much adjustment time at all to launch the next round of counterattacks.

Less than half a minute after the double-numbered Roman heavy infantry counterattacked, the Roman heavy infantry, standing in the odd position, launched another counterattack against the enemy, and there is no doubt that the Lucy warriors, who were vigilant in the wrong direction, were once again heavily damaged by the Roman heavy infantry who took the initiative to attack.

After a dozen counterattacks, the Roman heavy infantry relied on the defensive counterattack tactics of the shield wall defense, and could no longer inflict many casualties on the repeatedly wounded Lucy warriors, and Aldington and Marcus, knowing that the time had come, ordered the trumpeters to blow the horn of retreat.

The Roman heavy infantry wanted to retreat, and the Lucy soldiers, who had fewer and fewer casualties, would not let the Roman heavy infantry fight and retreat as much as they wanted, and the Lucy soldiers, who were like kraft candy, entangled the Roman heavy infantry who tried to retreat and prevented them from retreating.

Seeing that the retreat of the Roman heavy infantry was blocked, Aldington and Marcus, after a little discussion, personally led a third of the Roman youth army to rush forward to reinforce the Roman heavy infantry, which was difficult to retreat, and Marcus, who remained in place, was responsible for commanding all the remaining troops.

The reinforcement of ten Roman youth troops could not help the Roman heavy infantry to retreat, but the Roman heavy infantry, which had been reinforced, could join forces with the Roman youth army that had been recuperating for a long time to contain the enemy's offensive.

Thirty-two Roman heavy infantry and ten Roman youth armies, the combined strength of the two armies was nearly 7,000, and even if the Roman heavy infantry had suffered some casualties, the two armies together had more than 6,500 soldiers, which was more than enough to contain the enemy's offensive.

You know, when the Roman heavy infantry used the shield wall tactics to fight the enemy, the longbowmen who had the protection of the covering troops never stopped, and the longbowmen, who had already used up a quiver and arrow, effectively killed and wounded a large number of enemy soldiers.

Less than an hour had passed since the Roman army and Luci's army sounded their battle horns, and in that short hour, the number of Chinese soldiers in Viriacius had increased from more than 53,000 to less than 30,000 at present.

Nearly 25,000 soldiers were killed in an hour, and the number of enemies killed did not exceed 500, and the Roman army, with its own great combat power, once again gave Viriacius a vivid lesson in the practice of war, and made him understand that the Roman army was not only powerful in cavalry, but also powerful in infantry!

After the two armies officially entered the stage of hand-to-hand combat, he immediately sent his personal guards to the two wings and sent troops to support his Chinese army.

Although Roderick and Hale each had 40,000 warriors under their command, their main task was to guard against the enemy's powerful super cavalry, so Viriacius did not draw too many warriors from their command, but only 15,000 warriors each.

There is certainly a gap between using 40,000 soldiers to guard against enemy cavalry and 25,000 soldiers to guard against enemy cavalry, but there will be no fundamental difference; but the meaning of 30,000 soldiers to the Chinese army is completely different.

In Viriacius's view, once the total strength of the Chinese army, which has dropped to less than 30,000, is joined by 30,000 fresh troops, it will definitely be able to form an absolute superiority over the enemy.

As for the more than 13,000 cavalry of the enemy army who had been roaming around the periphery of the battlefield and did not participate in the battle, Viriacius, who had already left 50,000 soldiers distributed on the flanks of his own Chinese army, decided to put all the key to the victory or defeat of this battle on his main force of the Chinese army.

Luquis, who could easily see the intention of Viriacius's layout, did not interfere with the command of Aldington and Marcus from beginning to end, nor did he use other forces at his disposal to disrupt Viriacius's layout.

So far, with the exception of the two Roman legions of the Fifth and Sixth Legions, as well as the two subsidiary longbow units of the other two Roman legions, Luquis has not committed any other army under his command to intervene in this large-scale battle.

Yes, the decisive battle of the life and death of his army in the eyes of Vriacius was only a battle of no small scale in the eyes of Luquis, because Luquis still had in his hands more troops than Viriacius could not have imagined to intervene in this battle.

The Third Army and the Fourth Army, which had just been stationed in the Eastern Alliance's surrender camp this morning, had not participated in the battle of the main forces of the two Roman legions, and more importantly, the 70,000 newly surrendered Eastern Alliance soldiers were also a force that Luquis could use at any time.

The leaders of the Eastern Alliance who had lost control of the soldiers under their command had already been controlled by Luquis, and with the people of the Eastern Alliance settlements that had fallen before, Luquis was completely sure that he could collect 70,000 Eastern Alliance soldiers for his own use.